


light my way home

by courante



Category: Buzzfeed Ladylike (Web Series), Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Disney World & Disneyland, F/F, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 03:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courante/pseuds/courante
Summary: Annie's adventures in Disneyland, take one.Nobodygoes to Disneyland alone for a prolonged period of time, not even Passholes; jumping in just to use the restroom doesn’t count. It’s sad, is what it is. Which is exactly what she feels upon entering, regret immediately roaring through her brain as she pushes past exuberant children and noisy fannypack-wearing day-pass tourists and couples in terrible Disneybounding attempts teetering atop trashcans in view of the riverboat below. Everyone here is with someone else and Annie wants to melt into one of the Mickey-shaped potholes and disappear.





	light my way home

**Author's Note:**

> here's some annie/jen for the first day of pride month!!!! i just had this lil scene (what's a plot) pop up in my head a few hours ago and as cliche as this trope is i Had to write it...
> 
> (don't think either of them are actually scared of roller coasters so that's absolutely made up! as is everything else in this fic!)

Annie, as a rule, detests being alone at Disneyland.

Anywhere else is fair game; she likes the solitude walking down the beach with the wind whipping around her unsecured hair beneath some headphones, or the serenity of reading a book at the park with pigeons and sparrows pecking away beneath her bench. Oh, she’ll let Niki drag her out to a wine festival or help Kevin snap pictures downtown in a pinch, but those are things she _could_ also do all by herself.

 _Nobody_ goes to Disneyland alone for a prolonged period of time, not even Passholes; jumping in just to use the restroom doesn’t count. It’s sad, is what it is. Which is exactly what she feels upon entering, regret immediately roaring through her brain as she pushes past exuberant children and noisy fannypack-wearing day-pass tourists and couples in terrible Disneybounding attempts teetering atop trashcans in view of the riverboat below. Everyone here is with someone else and Annie wants to melt into one of the Mickey-shaped potholes and disappear. Or set the place on fire.

Niki would say she might be overreacting just a tad; Annie supposes she is, but she’s _allowed_ to feel this way, alright. At least she’s not running down the street crying (that’d get her kicked out) or anything that’d land her in jail (she’s heard stories from Ryan). She’s just here, in a theme park, alone, waiting and hoping for the coming adrenaline to kick her ass out of orbiting the sadness that is getting rejected from her dream internship.

“God, this is so pathetic,” Annie mutters as the line moves by an inch. She should’ve charged her half-dead phone so she could listen to a podcast, or even scroll through some dumb listicles. Anything to take her mind away from revisiting all the times she’d messed up during the interview, all the changes she should’ve probably added to her resume, down to what she’d been wearing. Stupid, really, now that it’s over and done with and she should just _get over it_ , but. At least she’s got a pretty good poker face, despite the clouds overhead still refusing to budge. Not like anyone’s peeking into her brain and seeing all this terrible self-deprecation.

“Hey, you dropped something,” someone says. Annie turns around to see a familiar-looking handkerchief being pushed in her face, and a shorter girl with a pixie cut grinning back at her. “This is yours, right?”

“Oh— yeah, it’s uh, thank you,” she splutters, almost yanking the bright yellow Paddington Bear handkerchief out of the other girl’s fingers to stuff inside her purse again. “Sorry, that was…”

“Oh no,” the girl says. The line moves forward, but her hand’s still out; Annie blinks. “I’m Jen, by the way.”

“I’m Annie,” Annie blurts out before she could stop herself. “I uh. You want to shake hands?”

Alright, now she’s just embarrassing herself further in front of whoever this Jen is— a complete stranger, even if she’s cute. Does she _want_ something in exchange?

“Oh! I was— instinct, ya know.” Then, just as she retracts her hand, “Sorry if this is intrusive, I get it, but… you looked kinda down back there.”

The line moves again; Annie could see in the dim light there’s probably about another two dozen people in front of them now atop the wooden structure. She shrugs, turning back towards Jen. “It’s fine. I fucked up an interview, so I’m here to scream alone.”

“Aw,” Jen replies; the well-meaning, annoyingly sympathetic sort of comfort words that Annie expects to come never do. Instead all she gets is, “But you aren’t alone! I’ll scream with you.”

“I— well I mean, technically, yeah.” That smile is downright infectious, Annie thinks as she cracks a small one of her own. “Thanks. Why are _you_ here alone?”

“I’m with family, actually!” Jen gestures vaguely towards the direction of Fantasyland. “But my sisters went off on another ride. ‘S alright, I can handle this.”

They keep the light conversation going all the way to boarding, a real feat Annie isn’t sure Jen even knows she’s accomplished. In the same vein, Jen’s genuinely interesting in her own right— a recent graduate from Illinois here to start a new job touring town with the family who’s perhaps somewhat  _too_ into the Sopranos (to which Annie fell asleep watching once) and armed with enough cheeky retorts to anything Annie might snark about that it’s a almost uncanny. And she’s got amazing hair (always a plus.)

 _Great_ , Annie thinks as they finally get to insert themselves into the seats; her hands are getting sweaty, and it’s not all from the anticipation of hurling themselves down a mountain. She sighs to herself as they settle into the routine; Annie’s been on Big Thunder Mountain a couple times before, and though it’s not the scariest ride around it’s decent enough to get her blood pumping.

Then she turns to Jen and sees the other girl’s face is pale. “Uh, Jen?”

“I’m fine—”

“Oh my god, you’re scared of roller coasters,” Annie whispers as the lap bars come down to hold them in place. Jen shakes her head vehemently, though it’s obvious now that they’ve got no way out of the situation. From the look on her face, the laugh bubbling to the surface stays inside Annie for now. “This one isn’t that scary—”

“I’m fine, honestly!”

The train starts moving, and Annie hears her let out a little yelp.

“Okay, I don’t— I don’t like this—”

“I got you,” Annie says, and grabs her hand. Jen whips her head up and stares at her, eyes widening in surprise, the gaze lingering so long that Annie could feel her cheeks warm even as the wind starts to howl around them. She has to shout to get her next words through, amidst the other passengers’ noises. “C’mon, you said you’d scream with me!”

“That’s such aaaAAAHHHH—”

 

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, it… it’s fine.”

Annie shakes her head as she watches Jen sprawl all over a bench, face-up and a hand over her chest as she wheezes in an exaggerated fashion. “Incredible. All that talk back there—this isn’t even Space Mountain.”

Jen rolls her head around to look at her, grinning lazily. “Okay, ya got me. You feel better now?”

“I do, actually.” It’s true; Annie plops down on the bench, her hand straying close to Jen’s. Her legs still feel wobbly from the ride, and the scenes from earlier in the office, if not completely gone, seem a little more distant now. She leans back to watch another group of people whoosh past on the ride, yelling as they go. The remainder of the afternoon sun hits Jen's hair at an angle, spraying gold all over dark strands. It's a nice look, Annie thinks, but doesn't say aloud. “That was good. Thanks, Jen.”

“Don’t thank me, thank the Mouse,” Jen yawns, reaching up to adjust the fluff of her hair. Then she sits up, looking towards where two people are waving in their direction. “Oh—my sisters are back. Guess they wanna check out the castle or something.”

She jumps up, sneakers squeaking as she turns back and finger-guns as she starts jogging away before Annie could put in a word. “Was great meeting you, Annie! I’m sure you’ll find something soon!”

“Nice… meeting you too,” Annie returns, her voice trailing off as she waves back. Jen’s grin is soon swallowed by the sea of people surging as the sun starts sinking further into the horizon. She sighs and sits back in the bench, the adrenaline seemingly draining away through the soles of her flats.

Well, that’s a bust.

Still, it’d been good having someone to talk to, to scream with, if just for a brief moment in a theme park where she knows nobody else. At least she hadn’t suffered any further indignities than she's weathered so far. Annie reaches into her purse for her handkerchief to wipe her hands off, only to see a strip of paper flutter to the ground as she opens it.

“...?”

She bends down and flips it over to see a number, followed by _:) - jen r._

The smile is back and tugging on her lips before she knows it. Annie stands up, stretches, and starts making her way towards the exit as she carefully folds up the paper back into the handkerchief. All around her, the streetlights come to life as she flips out her phone to check the charging progress, as if illuminating her way home.

Hopefully, Annie muses as she taps on  _Add New Contact_ , she won’t be alone the next time she visits.


End file.
